Britt Lower’s Intense ‘Severance’ Audition Video Shows Helly R. Already Fully Formed (Exclusive)
When Britt Lower’s agent sent her the script for the Severance pilot and encouraged her to audition for the lead role of Helly R. in the summer of 2019, she made it clear how slim her chances of landing the part were.
“It’s a real long shot, but we think you’re right for this role and we need you to make a self-tape,” Lower recalls her agent, Jo Yao of UTA, telling her at the time. Lower had been in the business long enough to know that auditioning was a numbers game. She accepted the likelihood of rejection. But this pilot was different. “I spent a Saturday diving into the script and falling in love with this character,” said Lower, who recently graced the cover of The Hollywood Reporter. “I was like, ‘OK, this is the best one I’ve ever read.’”
The tape, shown below, ended up getting her an in-person callback with Severance creators Ben Stiller and Dan Erickson, where she succeeded in making Stiller laugh — a victory in itself. “That was the win,” she thought. Confident she had given her all, she was prepared to say goodbye to Helly R. Of course, she got the part, which this year has earned her an Emmy nomination, one of 27 garnered by the Apple TV+ series.
She filmed the first scene of the pilot — in which Helly wakes up in a featureless conference room with no idea how she got there nor, indeed, who she is — in her bathroom of her Los Angeles house, which she selected for the lighting. She asked a friend to read the lines spoken over the intercom by Adam Scott’s character, Mark S.
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“My approach to making self-tapes is like, this is a chance for me to show them what I would do if they chose me to play this role,” says Lower. “And almost like you’ve shown up to set early, and the director and the DP, and everybody’s late, and they just want you to film it on your own. Like, show us what you would do.”
The bathroom backdrop notwithstanding, the scene is strikingly similar to the opening scene of the series, with Helly R already fully formed. Lower, who was an accomplished athlete in high school, gave such a physical performance within the confined space that she left black shoe marks on her white door.
“I don’t live in that house anymore,” says Lower, “But I left [those marks] for a while because they reminded me of this special time I got to be Helly for the day.”
